Pet Insurance

Pet insurance is one of the fastest growing areas of veterinary care. But is it right for you? Four to five years ago that answer was pretty easy. Probably not. What you paid out in premiums wasn’t worth the benefits received. However, three things are changing that may influence how we are looking at pet insurance.

Better medicine – advances in available treatments have made very high end human health care tools available to us in veterinary care. We can literally prolong the quality and quantity of life in pets in ways we simply couldn’t before. Those options, however, aren’t cheap.

Increasing costs – the cost of human healthcare is increasing and that is trickling down to our industry. There are a number of drugs, supplies and pieces of equipment that are used in both human and veterinary care. It’s reached a point in our business that it is cheaper for us to pay the insurance premium for our employees than it is to give them an employee discount.

Better plans – like any insurance plan, not everyone will need it. Pet insurance is just like health, car and home insurance. It’s there in case you need it. Hopefully you don’t. However, the plans we looked into the past just weren’t comprehensive enough. They were also complicated and difficult to administer. A few companies are really figuring it out and coming out with plans that our easier to manage, get more timely payouts and provide more comprehensive coverage.

Our Recommendation

After doing our homework, we decided that Trupanion was the best fit for our practice. They have the simplified the process by giving us access to their system. We can and do manage all the filing and paperwork [it’s actually paperless] right in our own office for you. They pay a higher number of claims, have no caps on how much you can claim and have the best overall coverage in our opinion.

They also have a 30 day trial period that gives you coverage without any initial out of pocket costs. They were just the best practice for us. Before you decide, however, there are a few tips and tricks you should be aware of. Feel free to speak with one of our doctors. They will give you the inside scoop.

Providers

While we don’t have the same tools to automate claims and payment processing as we do with Trupanion, we work with all insurance providers. Just let a member of our team know who your carrier is and we are happy to assist. Below is are links to the major insurance providers: